Foerster Algebra I scheduling - This is more than a year!

[Kendall]

I have taught out of this book twice, but the first time we took 2 years(7th and 8th grade) and the second time we started the last 6 weeks of the 8th grade year and finished in 9th.  I would like to complete this text this year.  We school for 180 days.  I just added up all of the recommended assignments and got to 183 days.  That does not allow anytime for a review day or test day for any chapter.  I am okay with not testing; I usually don't in Algebra I (though I always am assessing!).  But that still is 3 days over and allows no time for life happening or for an assignment taking longer than suggested.  

 

How have you scheduled this?  What have you adjusted?  Or does everyone just school longer than I do?

 

Thanks in advance,

Kendall 

[Momling]

The first few chapters were pretty easy review for my daughter (who had done two years of pre-algebra), so we did chapter one review the first week and chapter 2 review the next week. Etc...Starting in ch 5, we did each lesson in one day unless it was outrageously time consuming. Looking back at my planner, I can see that chapter 11-10 lasted 6 days, for instance. Still doing the chapter review and chapter test, we finished the book by April. I took someone's advice and had my daughter do odds, but all word problems.

[justasque]

I usually try to buzz quickly through the initial review pages of any math text, so as to create time to fit in tests, review days, etc. We work problems together in a kind of "hey, remember this?  got it?  no?  try this one.  got it now?  good, let's move on" interactive way.  I also have observed how much time "honors" students spend on math - almost an hour of class most school days, plus an hour of homework.  While I may not divide the time in the same way, I expect my "honors" students to spend a similar amount of time on their work. Some years I've started math earlier than the rest of  our year, and we go on later, specifically so that we have some margin for holidays, sickness, and so on.  In some math texts, I go through and eliminate some of the lessons I feel aren't as necessary, again to create some margin.  

[Liza Q]

My son used Lials, but it has taken him a full calendar year to finish Algebra 1. Actually, he won't finish for two more weeks, even though we just started our new school year. He had the summer off except for math and a little Spanish review, and has worked about 1.5 hours, 2-3x per week since mid-June, when he finished everything else. He also continued with Debate, as that is an outside class which he enjoys.

 

He hasn't complained...mostly because a. we went to Disney World for 2 weeks in January after we had 2 weeks off for Christmas and b. he knows that the alternative is to put more into each week, like his friends do (they use all online classes and can't save anything for the summer) - he likes to count on free time in the evening and weekends and his math style is slow and steady and he knows he would not have done well if I had rushed him. He found Algebra challenging and, even with a full year, he is only a B student who averages about an 85.

 

 

[Sunshine State Sue]

Here are some older threads about scheduling:

Scheduling Foerster's Algebra 1...

 

Is there a suggested schedule for Foerster Algebra 1?

 

Foerster's Algebra I schedule

 

Foerster's Algebra I users

 

We combined the first 2 sections of each chapter and took 3-4 days for the word problem sections.  Ds completed the evens or odds in each section and ALL the word problems.

 

HTH!

[8filltheheart]

My approach is similar to Sue's. I'm going through it with my 6th child this yr. We have always finished the book in around 34-35 weeks.